title: Minimizing interference from magnetic resonance imagers during electrocardiography.
abstract: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows a physician to obtain images of internal organs noninvasively. Imaging a moving organ such as the heart requires a trigger so that successive scans can be synchronized. In the case of cardiac imaging this trigger is the electrocardiogram (ECG). When a patient is in an MRI scanner he/she is subjected to both static and dynamic magnetic fields which can cause interference in the ECG. The dynamic fields consist of 8- to 64-MHz radio frequency (RF) pulses and low-frequency magnetic gradient pulses with frequency components below 100 Hz. Conventional bandpass filters are only moderately effective because the passband allows magnetic gradient-induced interference to be superimposed on the ECG, causing distortion of the signal. This paper describes a technique which can be used to remove induced MRI gradient interference from an ECG recorded on a patient inside the bore of a MRI scanner. Induced signal from an external loop is subtracted from the ECG to minimize the low-frequency interference. The gradient induced low-frequency interference was reduced to approximately 20% of its magnitude when using conventional ECG amplifiers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison 53706, USA.
authors.forename: M K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Laudon
authors.forename: J G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Webster
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Frayne
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Grist
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016477:Artifacts; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004562:Electrocardiography; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D004867:Equipment Design; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013552:Swine